Ontario Afternoon

Picture a mile of warm sandy beach in either direction with a mere handful of people strolling about, sky so blue you could swim in it, a long, concrete pier, its edges stitched with fishing lines, a great lake decorated with boats of all kinds - tall white sails fluttering in the breeze, speed boats towing water skiers, massive paddle boats marshaling tourists. Sounds like a wonderful summer day in a fabulous resort?

Not so. Its Ontario Public Beach on a glorious Indian summer day, though I'm not convinced we have had our first frost yet. Drew has never heard of Indian summer. He thinks I am making it up. And when we both returned from church and I announced my idea of going to the beach (and one we have not yet explored), he was adamant that he would not go.

But I made him. He fussed about how long the drive was (less than twenty minutes) and before we even got out of the car, he laid down the rules. Once up the pier, to the end of the stretch of sand, and then we were leaving. And it better not take more than an hour. Not that he had planned anything other than kicking a soccer ball around and hoping other kids in the complex would join us.

So we started out. First, he walked kind of fast. Then he discovered the ladders over the side of the pier every ten feet or so, and he stopped to investigate. He could see little shiners darting about, and a few times a huge fish jumped or slid out of the water in full view.

He was fast becoming hooked. He was hoping for a lighthouse tower at the end of the pier, but there wasn't one. We slowly ambled back the full length of the pier that had to be at least a mile long. We watched others who were fishing though no one seemed to be catching anything.

We remarked at the various leashed dogs who passed us. Before we got to the end of the pier, Drew jumped the fence to the beach and took off to find a place to dig while I located a rest room. When I caught up with him, he had no desire to walk the beach. But he hadn't really seen everything yet. Against his better judgment, he accompanied me in a slow saunter along the water's edge. Both of us had long since stripped off our shoes and socks, and quickly we were dabbling our toes in the chilly water. It felt so refreshing and joltingly cold!

At last he found a place where he wanted to create a castle, so I lay on the warm sand while he engineered a wondrous creation. I lay on a sneaker pillow, pulled my baseball cap over my eyes and relaxed. The breeze was gentle - just enough to keep the bugs away, sometimes whipping up little dirt devils that danced across the expanse, skittering a leaf or two over the shell laden beach.

The waves rolled up on land with a delicate whoosh - swish. If you closed your eyes, you felt like you were rocking quietly on a raft. Gulls wheeled overhead, and when I opened my eyes a slit, their white enticed the sky into a more dazzling blue. The sand shifted about me, cushioning my bony parts and accommodating my saggy parts, embracing me comfortingly.

When I got too warm, I wandered to the edge of the water and stuck my feet in just far enough to send a chill tingling up my spine. Drew had discovered the plenteous supply of rocks lying just under the shallow waves, and began collecting them to see how far he could skip them. His record for the afternoon - no fewer than eight skips!

"Mom," he asked. "Who inventing skipping stones?"

"Its as old as Adam," I replied.

And he was happy with that. He kept skipping stones and rebuilding the moat around his castle while I napped happily and drank in the glorious day. Before he realized it, hours had passed and suppertime was approaching.

Reluctantly we tore ourselves away. This would be a cherished afternoon for weeks to come. On the way home, I said how sad it was that Lugia's Soft Ice Cream Parlor was closed for the season. On the off chance that somehow they were still open, we swung by, and to our delight, they were open. We both had baby cones - his vanilla with sprinkles, mine chocolate straight up.

We sat in the car happily slurping the last cone of summer. Drew didn't seem to mind that he had missed out on soccer and friends. He even said what a good day it had been and how we should do it again. I agreed.